Happiness
by Megwolf13
Summary: This is a kind of what-if drabble. It's bascially what Sara's childhood might have been like if most of it had been happy.


**I keep reading stories about Sara's whole childhood being horrible. I agree, it was probably not like this, but I believe that everything should be given a chance. So here's Sara's childhood, if the first part of it had been happy.**

**Note- I don't own anything except four cats, and all but one of those are loaners.**

Her childhood had not been the happiest- not by anyone's standards. There had been trips to the hospital- there had been sadness for a good amount. But there had been happiness at first- pure, unadulterated happiness.

She remembered things about her childhood- things that might surprise Gil, things that might surprise anyone who knew why she had been a foster kid. Because most everyone assumed that there had been a reason her mother had killed her father, that one or the other had been abusive towards her and/or each other. This was true- father abused mother, mother abused father- both abused child, though not as often as each other. This was also not true.

She had been happy, for a long time- for eight years. They, her family, had been happy. Trips to the beach had filled her childhood- once, they had called her in sick and taken her to the zoo. Photographs filled the house, and laughter made the dust motes shine. They had drank, on occasion- some might call them alcoholics. But they drank when she was at school or at a friend's house- not when she was at home. This was the case for eight of the eleven years spent with them.

Happy, loving parents. Some of her friends envied her- they had one parent AWOL, or one in jail, or both inattentive. She had no siblings to compete for attention with- her parents just hadn't gotten pregnant again. Later, they argued about it. Not in the beginning. Happy, lovely. A roadside Bed and breakfast, a house on the beach for weekends and summer- that was later sold. An intelligent, beautiful daughter with crooked teeth who they swore would go to one of the Big colleges. Pride shined in them- one big, happy, semi-normal family. She remembered her room that was redecorated once every two years to fit her growing tastes- Humpty Dumpty replaced with Barbie or a new stuffed animal. Walls repainted- pink to green to yellow to blue to a painted sunrise, the one time they were sober and decided to be nice. Medium sized bedroom- not so small she couldn't turn around, not so big that she felt like she was drowning in space.

Christmases (the first eight) spent caroling and wassailing, with a real tree crowded with unique and store-bought and ornaments made at school.

Every test that had an A made the bulletin board. They ended up taking down old tests after three months, because otherwise there was no room. They tried to keep this up, the last couple months before even the hesitant normal was shattered by death.

A kitchen, painted yellow, where everything had a place. Cookies were made by mother and daughter, as kid helped dad to make chicken noodle soup when mom felt sick.

A bike, for her birthday. Brand new, with a matching helmet. A father who taught her the hand signals and who made sure she understood safety laws and helped her to learn how to ride on a busy street.

A kitten, to hold and call Princess, a three-year old's choice name. Gray and friendly, she combed her fur and gave her baths once a year. The cat loved her in return for affection and food, gave her comfort when she cried and longed for the old normality and the beach and for caroling and wassailing.

The endless books they allowed her to buy, the books they bought for her. Fiction and non-fiction, the Revolutionary war competing with Judy Bloom and Nancy Drew. They promised to be happy and together, forever. And even when the happy was gone, they promised to be with her and with each other, forever.

Whoever knew that forever could end?

She remembered this too- bit sand piece of it. Her books, slashed with a knife. The bike, dismembered, sold for parts the day everything fell down dead. The cat disemboweled, dead. Photographs shattered. Her tests, burned. The alcohol drank or dumped out, the bottles broken, the cans crushed. The yellow paint in the kitchen, colored a chaotic rainbow with crayons.

Her father, who had laughed and who still made her laugh in turn, dead.

Her mother, who made her Halloween times memorable, even when everything was bruised and scarred, who had held her daughter and soother her- she was replaced by a crazy woman.

Replaced by a word she did not understand- schizophrenia.

The smell of iron- the walls of her bedroom spattered with blood.

The social worker whose hand she could not let go of- she could not believe that the tentative normal was gone, even after the three years of not-so-good happy.

Her mother, put in a mental institution, ruled insane, let out after ten years of treatment.

She talked to her, when she ran from Vegas- ran form Gil and Natalie and the Ghosts and rain and everything.

Learned she felt guilt- learned she had been diagnosed a week before, learned that they had decided to try to stop the drinking and the fighting to try to figure out what to do.

Learned she had picked up the piece of their old life, had painted the kitchen yellow.

Had painted her room the colors of the sunrise, had repainted it every two years.

Learned that where horror and anger had been-

Forgiveness and understanding had taken their place- learned that happiness had moved in when she saw Gil again.


End file.
